(Continued)
* Hadassah-related news
* In the news
* Online resources
* Excerpts from Hadassah's Jerusalem Netletter
********************************************************
HADASSAH-RELATED NEWS
From the front
lines
Members of the medical team in
the trauma unit at Hadassah Hospital in
Jerusalem share their perspectives in
these times of terror.
Uzi Yizhar, heart-chest surgeon
What were they going to serve for dinner?
First course:
fillet of sliced tomatoes stuffed with goat cheese; second course: soup of meat
stock; third course: entrecote steak done on coals and served with arugula
leaves; dessert: tart tatine. It would all happen on an immaculate white
tablecloth, with fine china brought especially from France. And be accompanied
by a superb red wine, proceeding in the elegant, aesthetic, minimalist style of
the friends in Mevasseret Tzion, a Jerusalem suburb, where Uzi Yizhar was
invited for the Friday evening meal.
But at 7:30 P.M., the emergency room
called: There had been a shooting incident in Hebron, and a quarter of an hour
later, when he entered the trauma unit at Hadassah University Hospital, Ein
Karem in Jerusalem, it already looked like a battlefield. All these young
soldiers with deep wounds. And the blood, a huge amount of blood. It only takes
20 or 30 ccs of blood on the face to create an unpleasant sight, Uzi Yizhar
says, and here people had lost half a liter, in some cases a whole liter.
In the first stage, all the evacuated wounded are Nameless. Nameless 1,
Nameless 2, Nameless 3. There is something right about that, Yizhar says,
because you have to move immediately to a medical setup and a professional line
and not think about the context in which it's happening. The human story, the
person, the tragic circumstances - you can read about that tomorrow in the
newspaper. And of all the many terrorist attacks in Jerusalem in the past two
years, Yizhar recalls only one case in which they were aware of the human
dimension in the emergency ward. There was a seriously wounded boy from the Beit
Yisrael neighborhood who kept shouting that he wanted his mother and father. But
we in the trauma room already knew that his parents had been killed, Yizhar
says. We knew that the attack had erased the mother and father of the shouting
boy.
The young soldier from Hebron who was placed under his
responsibility was very badly hurt: shattered leg, gunshot wound in the throat,
massive bleeding. But what had to be done was to ignore what catches the eye and
stick to the procedures of ATLA - After Trauma Life Support. First of all make
sure the air passages are open, then ensure the respiratory system, then
estimate the volume of blood, then a neurological check, then a scan for wounds.
Because what's most important in trauma situations is to maintain the
existential order of priorities. Intubation, hook-up to respirator,
transfusions, catheter. And chest x-ray, spinal x-ray. Then immediately, within
a quarter of an hour, to rush the bleeding young soldier to the operating
theater; to try to stop the massive bleeding in the operation.
Yizhar
chooses his words meticulously. He is also very meticulous about his body, his
food and his dress. He is a handsome man of 44, Jerusalem-born. Restrained,
introverted, cautious. A gifted chest surgeon. It's only afterward that it
starts to seep in, he says. After the wounded person is already in surgery and
after you have examined the others to see whether they have chest-heart damage.
When you see the emergency ward slowly empty out, the wounded being scattered to
the wards, the orderlies washing the blood away, only then do you stop to ask
yourself, wait a minute, where am I? What happened here? And do I continue with
my plans for the evening? Do I go to the dinner? And you say yes. I'll go.
Because what are you going to do? Lock yourself in a safe? Sit in the house and
cry? So you shower and get back into the elegant black clothes you had been
wearing and get into your car and drive through the dark along the road that
climbs from Ein Karem to Mevasseret Tzion. And suddenly it hits you. All the
chaos hits you, the madness we are living.
At the immaculate table you
say nothing, of course. Because you don't think you need that therapy. You don't
need to ventilate your feelings like that. And it wouldn't be fair to impose on
others what you have just gone through. The blood that covered your clothes, the
sights, the smell of burnt flesh. The feeling of a battlefield in the trauma
unit. A battlefield. On the way to dinner. After all, everyone in Israel is
living this chaos today. The only thing that makes you different is that you
touched it physically. You saw this all-encompassing chaos rampaging within the
collapsing body systems of one young soldier.
He is leftist in his
opinions - Meretz and left of Meretz. Uzi Yizhar has felt nothing of the
rightward drift that everyone is talking about. As far as he is concerned, we
can give back all the territories, give the Palestinians a state and give them
half of Jerusalem, too. After all, it's obvious that there is a given geographic
territory here that has to be divided in two. So let them divide it between the
two parties, period. He finds this whole thing about the Land of Israel and
religion and a historical tie strange and bizarre. They are terms in a language
he doesn't understand, like Chinese.
Uzi Yizhar does not accept the
argument that there is no one to talk to. Because if there is no one to talk to,
we have to talk with ourselves. And if peace with the Palestinian people is a
myth, then we have to draw the line ourselves, without peace. The tanks
shouldn't be in Jenin or Bethlehem, they should be on the Green Line. After all,
this whole technique of going into Ramallah and then leaving Ramallah hasn't
proved itself. He himself doesn't understand how it is that after two full years
like this people haven't yet taken to the streets. How it is that people aren't
crying out that this has become a routine way of life that cannot be lived. A
routine way of life that must not be lived.
We have this term in
medicine, Yizhar says: It's incompatible with life. And the situation that has
developed here is exactly that: incompatible with life. It's not a war like the
Six-Day War, which has a beginning and an end and some sort of goal. Which has a
defined setup. Instead, it's some sort of insane situation in which hell
intervenes in the line of normal life time and again. If it's once, all right.
It's a one-time disaster. If it's twice it's still tolerable. But when it
becomes a kind of ongoing reality in which these events erupt into the routine
of life over and over, it becomes nightmarish. It becomes something that hones
the feeling that these victims are dying in vain. That these people are dying
unnecessary deaths.
And then, when you're sitting at home and reading
and listening to jazz and within 10 minutes you find yourself in hell, you say
that it makes no sense. It can't be. And when you go for dinner afterward and
eat the entrecote that's prepared on coals you say this is not a reality that
people can live with. The life we are living here now is a life that is
incompatible with life.
Na'ama Hevroni, nurse
It's the first evening of Hanukkah and also Shabbat eve and
it's raining. The wounded from Mombasa are due soon, but in the meantime the
emergency ward of Hadassah Hospital in Ein Karem is busy with banalities:
children dehydrated by the latest virus, elderly women with pneumonia
a
Palestinian boy who claims a soldier hit him. Quite a few people injured in
traffic accidents caused by slippery roads. But the team that was summoned from
home to attend to those on the plane from Kenya moans that this is already the
third wrecked Shabbat. One Shabbat was Hebron, the next was the No. 20 bus, the
third is Kenya. And it's not over. It shows no signs of ever being over.
As though it's some kind of game, says Na'ama Hevroni: They bomb and we
treat. They take people apart and we try to put them back together. From the age
of four she knew she would be a nurse, at five she already dressed up as a
nurse. And when she studied nursing she knew that she would come to work in the
emergency ward of Hadassah Hospital. In fact, it was exactly seven years ago
today that she started working here. Her first terrorist attack came three
months later, the number 18 bus, and a week later came the second attack. The
most astonishing thing is the euphoria, Hevroni says. It's not black humor, it's
a kind of bizarre scene of smiling and adrenaline and laughs.
And it's
not just after the event is over, it's in the trauma room itself. When an x-ray
is taken and the whole team moves aside and huddles together in the corner, they
all feel in some way uplifted. They even tell jokes. It's as though they are
totally uncorrelated with what's going on. As though they aren't taking it in.
The very people who you would think would take it in best of all aren't taking
it in at all. On the contrary. During work they feel somehow uplifted.
In the second attack, in March 1996, she already had a lump in her
throat. She walked around and she did her job, but the whole time she felt on
the brink of tears. She was only a kid of 23 at the time and found herself in
the midst of scenes that a kid of 23 should not have to see. When she was told
to do an ECG on a dead man and had to attach the clips to his charred limbs, she
suddenly realized that she was in hell: That what happens in an attack is that
hell enters the ER.
Hevroni grew up in the settlement of Kedumim. She
was raised to believe in Greater Israel, the virgin land. Today, though, she is
not sure. Today is one big doubt. And sometimes she gets angry at the
decision-makers here, who don't do enough. After brutal attacks, she hopes that
now at last they will launch an operation, now's the time. Don't we have an air
force that can wipe out a village in a second? On the other hand, we won't hurt
the innocent. But on the other hand, then our hands are tied. And in the end we
go like sheep to slaughter. Sometimes she tells her friends, look closely, it's
a holocaust. It's a kind of small holocaust because even though we have a strong
state and a strong army, in the end we go with hands raised to our death.
No, she has no solutions. She doesn't like Lieberman and Eitam because
she doesn't like extremism. She is angry at Sharon because he promised so much
and didn't deliver. But she doesn't like the arrogant insensitivity of the left,
either. Even in arguments among the hospital staff she sees it: the left has a
lot fewer doubts than the right. The left behaves as though it has a monopoly on
the truth. She herself is no longer sure of anything. If she received a message
from heaven that in return for giving up the house in Kedumim this madness would
stop, she would be ready even to give up the house in Kedumim. Despite all the
pain, even though that is her home, even though it would be like cutting off
part of her. But in the meantime, there is no such promise from heaven anyway.
And maybe they really do want everything. Maybe they are deceiving us, but we
are in a vicious cycle.
She has large, warm pupils; her eyes shine. And
even when Shabbat begins she continues to manage the emergency ward with a quiet
cordiality. She treats the Palestinian who was maybe beaten and maybe not. She
treats a young man who was stabbed in a pub brawl. She evacuates new patients to
the hospital wards. The thing she is most afraid of is that she will become
steeled, blunted, lose sensitivity. She remembers that after the big terrorist
attacks in 1996 no one came to the emergency room for days on end. It was as
though people saw things in proportion. The whole country was in shock then, all
was subdued.
But today, even before an attack with mass casualties ends,
people are already coming in with their headaches. And on the radio they go back
to the rhythmic songs within hours and in the evening Yatzpan is on television
as though nothing had happened. So everything that filled the emergency ward
this morning and everything that spilled onto this green linoleum floor becomes
just another item. On the one hand, that's as it should be, there is no other
choice; but on the other hand it is very sick. The whole situation is sick.
The hardest moment was in June, after the attack at the French Hill
intersection. There was this really sweet girl there, the typical student of a
girls' religious school, hair carefully combed, wearing light makeup. She
touched me right away, in the trauma unit, Na'ama Hevroni says. Maybe she
reminded me of myself at her age. And when the doctors declared her dead and
said she had to be evacuated quickly because they needed the place for someone
else who maybe had a chance to live, I suddenly got angry. I was angry that only
a few minutes before, she was alive, and now she was already not important. Now
she was being moved out quickly so she wouldn't take up space. I was absolutely
offended for her.
She stayed with me for weeks. Whenever I closed my
eyes I would see her. When I tried to sleep I would see her. When I went to the
pool to loosen up, I swam and I cried for her. As though there were no more
healing. As though all the strength I had to give had left me. Because I became
attached to that religious schoolgirl in the trauma room. In a way I even loved
her.
Since then I have become steeled. I learned. What I especially
learned is not to look at the faces. Now, when 18-year-old soldiers with young,
resilient bodies are brought in, I tell myself, Na'ama, don't look them in the
face. Because if you look at the faces of these sweet, beautiful soldiers you
will get attached to them. So I tell myself, Na'ama, be a robot. Change the
catheter, okay. Open the chest, okay. But if you see their faces they will float
past you every time you close your eyes. Because the face is the person. A face
is something with a name.
She hasn't been at ease for the past two years
and two months. Her body is always edgy, alert. If she is in the workout room
she showers immediately so that if there is a terrorist attack it won't catch
her perspiring. And there is no rest. There is not a moment of true calm. Her
eye is constantly on the mobile phone.
Deep down she is very optimistic.
She doesn't believe she will break. She doesn't believe that things won't work
out. But almost every day she asks herself how many buses and how many
pedestrian malls there will be before things do work out. She thinks about that
Poliker song, Who is next in line, who is in the next line. She is afraid of the
feeling that a curtain is falling; as though a curtain is falling over us and we
don't understand what is happening. Sometimes she tells herself that this can't
really be happening. She waits for someone to shake her out of it and tell her
it was only a dream. Only a nightmare. But no one shakes her out of it. No one
is stopping it. This nightmare is really happening.
Yossi Amiel,
orderly
It was Idan, Yossi Amiel's 11-year-old son, who chose
the tune for the ring of his father's mobile phone. The song is "Our Path Is Not
Easy."
Because our path now is not easy, Idan told his dad. So that now,
whenever there is a terrorist attack in Jerusalem, and whenever there is a
lethal shooting incident in the West Bank, Yossi Amiel's mobile phone
immediately sounds the gaily mechanical sounds that the Pele-Phone company
offered its clients: Our way is not easy not easy.
Amiel was born in the
rundown Katamonim neighborhood of Jerusalem 35 years ago. His father was the
masseur of the Betar Jerusalem soccer club and to this day Amiel is a
dyed-in-the-wool Betar fan and a dyed-in-the-wool Likudnik.
He lives in
a 90-square-meter apartment in Ma'aleh Adumim, a city east of Jerusalem across
the Green Line, with his wife Ilanit, who is disabled, and Idan, their only
child, who these days refuses to go to the shopping mall or visit city centers
and will absolutely not make the drive from Ma'aleh Adumim to Jerusalem. Because
it's dangerous in Jerusalem now. People blow up in Jerusalem.
For the
past 14 years, Amiel has worked in the emergency ward of Hadassah Hospital in
Ein Karem. When his phone rings out "Our way is not easy not easy" he knows
exactly what he has to do: clear the ward within minutes, place the stretchers
in a row outside and wait for the first casualties to arrive. After Prof.
Avraham Rifkind carries out the initial selection - the triage - it is Amiel who
rushes them into the trauma unit. Then to the operating theaters and sometimes
to the morgue.
He has a round face, kind eyes and likes to smile. He
leaves home at 5:30 A.M. and takes two buses in order to get to the morning
shift at Hadassah an hour and a half later. He leaves the hospital at 4 P.M. and
again takes two buses in order to get home an hour and a half later. He has an
omelet and cottage cheese, vegetable salad that he likes, and burnt toast with
butter. During the bus trips his wife calls five or six times to ask where he
is. Is he all right, has anything happened. And he too feels a sense of
oppression during the bus rides. He looks around because these days you never
know, your mind is not at rest. Twice, there has been a terrorist attack exactly
where the 29 line went by his bus. And he got off and helped with the wounded
and then got back onto his bus. He takes home NIS 5,500 a month - NIS 4,400 is
the basic; the rest is for the four Saturdays he works every month. Out of that
the mortgage gobbles up NIS 1,600, so less than NIS 4,000 is left for life
itself. But he mustn't complain now. Those who are still alive and those who
still have a job mustn't complain.
Last Thursday he voted for Sharon in
the Likud primary. On election day he will also vote Sharon and Likud, but if he
had the opportunity to meet Sharon, he would tell him that the nation is tired.
The nation is very tired. It is impossible already with this situation in which
people are being buried right and left. And as for the socioeconomic situation,
it's as though we have gone back to the 1970s. And if in the past his overdraft
limit was five, now it's doubled. They hardly ever go out, because to go to a
mall these days is NIS 200, minimum. So they sit home and watch Dudu Topaz and
"Only in Israel." But there is no joy; people have no energy for anything. And
you see more and more problems between couples. More divorces, more violence in
the family. Another year like this and who knows where we'll be. Master of the
Universe, where will it all end?
What especially drives him crazy, Amiel
says, is what you hear from the politicians - that we have to go on living. What
does that mean, go on living? It means getting up in the morning and not knowing
whether you're going to work or to a battlefield. Getting up in the morning and
not knowing whether your boy, who is your whole life, will be blown up today.
Therefore, even though I am on the right, Amiel says, even though I am on the
right and I back the Likud and all is fine and dandy, I am angry at Sharon for
not presenting a political path. What I say to Sharon is that he has to get up
one morning and tell his ministers that he is going to talk to Arafat. Because
it is impossible to live only on security and get terror all the time, you need
horizons, too. And the fact that Arafat is shut up in the Muqata doesn't stop
the terrorism. We in this country grew up on wars and we live with wars but now
it's enough. Now this nation is looking for quiet. The nation wants rest.
In any case we don't remember for the past 15 years what the Old City
looks like, Amiel says. So we can leave the settlements in Gush Katif and we can
leave the small settlements. We have to keep Efrat and Ariel and Ma'aleh Adumim,
because they are places of tens of thousands. But if in the end they say that
those places also have to go, and if they tell him to leave his 90 square meters
in Ma'aleh Adumim, he will leave. If that's what it takes to make the buses stop
blowing up, he will leave.
The worst image is when they have just
arrived at emergency. On the stretchers that he lines up outside are people who
are hurting, screaming, calling for help. And you see them burned badly. You see
them in the worst kind of anxiety. They ask what will be with them. They shout,
don't touch me, my whole skin is burned. And the blood. There is no shortage of
blood on the stone plaza outside the entrance. And then the families come and
rush the doors - where is my son? I want my boy.
But if you ask me
personally, Yossi Amiel tells me as we sit over the oilcloth and the remains of
breakfast in the staff room next to the emergency room at Hadassah Hospital, if
you ask me, he says, the hardest was last week, the attack on the No. 20 bus.
There was a 17-year-old girl he took to the operating theater, and he didn't
know what happened to her. When it was all over, he went up to Prof. Rifkind and
asked him and Prof. Rifkind said they lost her. He didn't cry there, because you
don't cry in a hospital, you have to cut yourself off, you have to help as fast
as possible, what happened, happened. But he took the crying inside and went
aside with it and thought about what that girl's family was going to go through.
And what if it had been someone from his family? If it was his child. What more
does a family have than a child?
And when he went through emergency
afterward with Prof. Rifkind he asked him where is it all going to end? How much
longer? And Prof. Rifkind told him, be strong, Yossi, don't break. This is our
profession, this is our country, this is what we chose to do in life.
But then you take two buses home, Yossi Amiel says as he pours me herbal
tea in a white paper cup. Because not everyone has a private car. And when you
finally get home you see the images on the news. You see the bus on the 20 line
neutralized. And then all the images of the day begin to play themselves out in
your head. The condition of the wounded when they arrived. The shouting, the
pressure. And how the emergency ward looked at the end of the event, when they
finished evacuating all the wounded. Like a slaughterhouse. And that 17-year-old
girl he took to the operating theater. That's when you let the tears come. And
the wife comes and asks what happened. And you explain to her that you are not
like other people. That when you see the bus ripped apart on television, you
know what happened. The wife sends the boy out of the room so he won't see and
gives you a good hug and a good cup of tea. The wife says we have to live but
you still have this ache in the stomach - kibinimat, enough. Because this is the
situation and it exists, but it is impossible to live with the situation. But
even though you are living and that's a fact, it's impossible to go on living
like this.
Nava Braverman, coordinator
Midwife
Nava Braverman, 49, mother of three, lives in Tzur Hadassah, near Jerusalem. On
regular days she is the coordinator of the woman's health center at Hadassah
Hospital in Ein Karem. On terror days she is responsible for the nursing team of
the emergency information center for families. I understood back in 1969 that
something here wasn't right, she says. We lived in Moshav Beit Zayit, just
outside Jerusalem, and after the war my father and my brother suddenly didn't go
to work in the orchard anymore because we had Arabs to do the work for us. That
bothered me. It bothered me a lot. There was something degenerate about it.
Overnight we started to behave like some kind of big rulers, governors, masters
of another people.
So I was active in New Israel Left and later I went
to Peace Now demonstrations. And I still go to demonstrations. It is absolutely
clear to me that our biggest mistake was not to return the territories right
away and finish that episode on the spot. That is still what I think: to
separate.
To live. To let them live and let us live, and maybe afterward
peace will come, too. My only hesitation now is what will serve that cause
better: Labor or Meretz.
In 1996, in the first big terrorist attack, we
still didn't understand. We thought it was a one-time thing. But I remember that
a week later, when the second attack came, I suddenly understood. As I was
treating the families I understood that this was it. This is how we are going to
live: from one terrorist attack to the next. And all that's left to do is pray
that it doesn't happen to your children. All that's left to do is watch over
those who are close to you. Because it will happen again and again and again. It
will not end.
Our role is to identify the Nameless as fast as possible.
Because it is only when you have a name and a face that you can spare people
suffering. But in these situations people don't have a name and they don't
always have a face. That's what's so hard. They don't have a name and they don't
always have a face.
What I do is enter the operating theater and take
photographs. The earlier you photograph, the better: afterward the face gets
bloated, twisted, changes unrecognizably. But if they are already shattered or
bandaged from the beginning I look for any identifying signs. A bracelet, an
earring, a pierced ear. And I ask the team if they saw some special scar, a
beauty spot.
A lot of times we have to rely on the clothing. By now the
nurses are already trained in this: they put all the clothes that they tear off
the wounded person into separate plastic bags. So if I find an orange sweater
and the mother outside tells me that the girl was wearing a purple sweater that
morning, I can bring it to her so she can see for herself. But because the
sweater is ripped and bloodstained as though a wild animal had attacked it, I
cut out a small piece of it that will be enough for her to identify the color
and the weave. That will make it possible for her to know whether the
13-year-old girl who just died is really her child.
That is the hardest
part. Because you bring the parents the earring or the ring or the piece of
cloth and suddenly they know. But sometimes they don't want to know. Sometimes
even when you take them in to make an identification they don't want to know.
You see the father or the mother walking around and around the body that is
still warm and it is absolutely clear that they know but are not capable of
knowing. They say yes, they say no, they are not capable of knowing.
Even after that, after the identification, they can't always take it. I
remember especially a young girl, very beautiful, who after her parents came and
identified her and left, her boyfriend came and her brother, both of them
soldiers. The two of them stood next to her and kept standing there. They
couldn't tear themselves away. They couldn't leave her.
It's not
something you can release yourself from. I remember in one of the attacks that
there were two families here who were looking for a boy of the same age, and we
had only one Nameless. One family said their son had blue eyes and the other
family said their son had brown eyes. And it was clear that the one who wasn't
here was at Abu Kabir, at the forensic institute. So I went into the operating
theater and all I could see through the bandages was his eyes. They were so
blue. A blue that you don't see here. But a few days later he died from his
wounds, too, and his blue eyes stayed with me for weeks. It also changes my
attitude toward my own family. There was a time when the kids wanted to do a
tattoo and I said no. But one day, after the brutal attacks, I came home and
said, go ahead, do a tattoo. Since then each kid is engraved with a special
sign. They are mapped for me. I engraved them for myself so that if they arrive
here I will be able to identify them immediately.
The attack on the No.
20 bus was really the hardest. I think that instead of getting used to it, we
are actually being worn down. This time there was also a lot of grief that was
expressed out loud. There was one mother who when we showed her her daughter's
bracelet lay down on the floor and shouted and couldn't calm herself. The father
also shouted, and the sisters, and the mute grandmother who couldn't talk tore
our hearts.
So when it was over I decided not to forgo my shift in the
obstetrics ward. I went home to shower and I stayed in the shower for maybe an
hour. Then I went back to the hospital, to obstetrics, to feel the other side.
Life. And I felt that it was slowly restoring me to sanity. Out of all this
madness that we are living in. Out of all this stench of death that is
enveloping everything. And even though the dead didn't leave my head, because
those dead don't leave your head, I felt that little by little I was coming back
to myself. Because to embrace a baby that has just been born is the most
soothing thing in the world. So on the day of the No. 20 bus, I held as many
babies as I could and I moved as many babies from place to place as I could. I
held them close and I hugged them. I hugged them more than
ever.
Return to top
Israeli doctors teach US professionals
about
emergency treatment
by Lauren Gelfond,
Israel21c
Dr. Benjamin Sachs, professor of obstetrics and gynecology at
Harvard
Medical School, was one of the 70 US professionals who learned about
Israeli
emergency procedures in a medical solidarity conference in
Jerusalem.
"Wars are good schools for disaster," said Shmuel Shapira,
Deputy Director
General of Hadassah University Hospital in Jerusalem. "But
the most important
message is to be prepared."
He urged his American
peers to drill medical teams under simulated war
circumstances and to create
operating rules for potential terror attacks.
After being troubled by
the uncontrollable internal and external bleeding
in terror victims Israeli
doctors adapted a medicine used traditionally for
hemophiliacs. "Novo 7 can
be used with excellent results. It's not approved by
the FDA, but we have
been using it extensively. We adapted it and now there
are international
studies to examine it," said Dr. Avi Rifkind, Hadassah's head
of emergency
medicine.
The American physicians planned the solidarity conference as a
response to
anti-Israel boycotts and divestiture campaigns. The Combined
Jewish
Philanthropies of Boston, Hadassah, the Women's Zionist Organization
of America,
and the Hadassah Medical Organization in Israel sponsored the
event.
Twelve Harvard-affiliated academics signed-on, as did leaders
from the National
Institutes of Health, and medical schools affiliated with
such universities as MIT,
Cornell and Columbia.
Return to top
********************************************************
IN THE NEWS
The Saudis' secret
weapons
by Michael Weisskopf and
Timothy J. Burger, Time
When radio ads critical of Israel ran in 15 U.S.
cities last spring, they
identified the Alliance for Peace and Justice as
sponsor. The alliance was
described by its Washington PR firm, Qorvis
Communications, as a
consortium of Middle East policy groups based in the
U.S. But when Qorvis
reported its ad work to the Justice Department last
month, it revealed that
funding for the $679,000 media buy actually came
from another source: the
Saudi government.
As home to all but four of
the Sept. 11 hijackers, Saudi Arabia had good
reason to hide its PR
offensive. A knowledgeable source tells TIME the
alliance was created by the
PR firm to disguise the role of the Saudis,
who pay Qorvis more than
$200,000 a month for its services. In a footnote
to its Justice report, the
firm said Riyadh helped fund the ads with a loan
to the alliance, which was
later repaid by a council representing Saudi
business interests. But the
source tells TIME most of the "repayments" came
from businesses controlled
by or close to the Saudi government and were
solicited by Adel al-Jubeir,
foreign-policy adviser to the Crown Prince and
architect of the Saudi PR
offensive. A Saudi embassy spokesman added that
some of the funding came
from three Arab-American interest groups. But
officials of two of these
groups said they had given nothing to the ad
campaign, and the third group
could not be reached.
Qorvis partner Michael Petruzzello denied anything
was done covertly. But
the Saudi role in the ads shocked Qorvis' law firm,
Patton Boggs, which
also represents the Saudi embassy. When the ads ran,
some Patton Boggs
partners who protested them — including one who quit over
the flap — were
led to believe the Saudi government was not
involved.
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Only
El Al planes have missile defense
By Douglas Davis, Jerusalem Post
LONDON - El Al is believed to be the
only civilian airline to have installed
anti-missile defense systems,
following FBI warnings ago that commercial
airliners could be targeted by
al-Qaeda terrorists firing portable surface-to-air
missiles. According to a
report in the London Times, most airlines noted the
warning but few took any
action because of cost - some $3 million per aircraft.
The system is
said to be capable of sensing an approaching missile and
deploying a false
signal, usually a flare, to divert it. Heat-seeking missiles, such
as the
SAM-7s that were fired at the Arkia plane in Kenya, are drawn to the flare
and explode harmlessly beyond the plane. The report also notes that civilian
airliners are harder to hit than military jets, despite being much larger,
because
they emit far less heat.
The FBI issued its warning to
civilian airlines after an attack on a US military jet
at Dhahran in Saudi
Arabia. The Federal Aviation Administration has considered
the feasibilty of
equipping US civilian aircraft with missile protection, but it
concluded in
1999 that: "Since there have been no confirmed incidents in the U.S.,
it is
difficult to convince aircraft manufacturers and airlines of the potential cost
benefits of making their aircraft less susceptible and less vulnerable ...
through the
implementation of warning systems."
Philip Baum, the
editor of Aviation Security International magazine, said that a
$3 million
defense system would add only 1.5 percent to the cost of a new Boeing
747.
"With every terrorist incident, we tend to assume further attacks will be of a
similar nature," he said. "After September 11, all the focus went on suicide
hijackers
getting into the cockpits. The response was to fit reinforced
cockpit doors. "But the
new threat could be coming from a different
direction. We need to look not only at
the intent of a terrorist
organization, but what it is capable of doing in the future."
David
Learmount, safety editor of Flight International magazine, was quoted as saying
that the aviation industry has been aware for decades that airliners are
vulnerable
to this kind of attack: "The question is why people haven't done
it more often." But he
cautioned against calls for airlines to be forced to
pay for expensive protection systems.
"There are many other safety systems
queueing up to be installed on planes which would save many more lives," he
said.
A British Airways source said: "We would never say never to this
type of equipment, but
our view at the moment is that it belongs in the
realm of highly sophisticated military
fighter planes." British Airways
would have to spend half its $2.5 billion cash reserves to
install the
device on each of its 350 aircraft. A source at Britain's Department for
Transport said: "Technically, it is feasible to fit these devices, but it
would be extremely
expensive and would not protect against all types of
missiles. We believe the best
protection is good intelligence and security
around airport perimeters." The Times noted
that 100 soldiers traveling on
civilian charter aircraft were killed in two attacks in Sri Lanka in 1995, and
in Afghanistan, 52 people died when a Bakhtar Afghan Airlines aircraft was shot
down in 1985. "Only El Al, Israel's national airline, is believed to have
installed missile defense systems," it added.
Return to top
Israeli movie had a shot at Oscar for Best Foreign
Film
by Debbie Berman, Israel
Insider
"Broken Wings," a drama by rookie Israeli director Nir Bergman
about a middle-class
Haifa family coping with the emotional and financial
fallout following the death of the
father, received top prize at the
prestigious Tokyo International Film Festival and could be in line for an Oscar
at the Academy Awards in Los Angeles next year.
The film also swept
Israel's version of the academy awards by winning in nine of the
12
categories in which it was nominated. Bergman won for Best Movie, Best Director
and Best Script, while cast members Orly Zilbershatz-Banai won for Best
Actress and
Maya Maron took the Best Supporting Actress award.
The
win for Best Movie qualified "Broken Wings" as the Israeli candidate in the
competition to be included as one of five films to be nominated for Best Foreign
Language Film at the Academy Awards. However, the film did not make the
cut.
The film first gained critical acclaim when it won the coveted
Wolgin Award at the
Jerusalem Film Festival last summer. Earlier this month
"Broken Wings" was awarded the
Tokyo Grand Prix - Governor of Tokyo Award at
the Tokyo festival, which is regarded highly
in the international film
arena. The contest targets new directors who have made three films or less. The
panel of judges at the festival that awarded Bergman the honor included French
director Luc Besson ("The Fifth Element") and cinematographer Jack Cardiff
("Sons and Lovers").
The long-struggling Israeli film industry has seen
recent growth and development mostly because of government programs and
financial incentives aimed at promoting local production. Outgoing Minister of
Science, Culture and Sport Matan Vilnai was awarded a prize at the Israeli
Oscars for the personal commitment he has made to boosting the Israeli film
industry.
Israeli cinema fans are hoping that "Broken Wings" will follow
in the footsteps of last year's Israeli success story - "Late Wedding," directed
by Dover Kosashvilli, which swept the Israeli awards and enjoyed great
commercial success and critical acclaim in Israel and abroad.
Return to top
Women
volunteering for combat roles with the Border Police
by Debbie Berman, Israel Insider
More and more young Israeli women are asking to serve in
the combat units of the IDF's Border Police. The women undergo rigorous training
and are deployed on security missions as equals of their male counterparts. The
Border Policewomen are following in the footsteps of Hani Abramov, who has
recovered from near-fatal injuries sustained when a Palestinian gunman shot at
her jeep in July 2001.
Currently there are one hundred and forty women
serving in the Border Police and another seventy are undergoing basic training,
preparing to join the ranks as instructors, officers, snipers, and field medics.
The Border Police has allowed female soldiers to take on combat roles
for seven years. "We started out with fifteen fighters," said Supt. Helena Arad,
head of Border Police human resources. "There are four competitors for every
Border Police slot. We see high motivation among these girls who want to serve
in active combat duty."
While Israeli women played a role in Israel's
battles in the War of Independence, in later years they mainly filled clerical
or educational positions during their compulsory army service. But recently more
and more roles in the army have opened to female soldiers, including combat
tasks in the Engineering Corps and Navy previously reserved for men. In June
2001, Lt. Roni Zuckerman became the fourth woman to complete the Israel Air
Force's pilot course and the first to reach the status of fighter pilot.
Border Policewomen awarded equal status
Yiftah Avraham,
commander of the Border Police's Central Division, told Maariv that despite
initial skepticism, women are now accepted in the Border Police ranks and
receive equal status. "Our job is to provide security for Israeli citizens and
combat terror and crime. The girls participate in all tasks, including ambushes,
roadblocks, stakeouts and patrols. We don't differentiate between the sexes," he
said.
The women are subjected to a difficult basic training course, on
par with the training male soldiers undergo. Their day starts at 4:30 am and
includes a 2,000 meter run, sit ups, sprints, target practice at a shooting
range, mortar firing and martial arts classes. Military officials pay special
attention to the needs of the new female fighters. "We have made a specialized
effort for the girls, based on a diet enriched with calcium and carbohydrates,"
explained base commander Gabi Orgil.
Sandra Fered, a new immigrant from
Uruguay, said she enlisted in the Border Police just after arriving in Israel.
"I was looking for something interesting; I didn't want to sit in an office.
They told me it was dangerous, that it was two and a half years of service, and
that I would have to do reserves duty until I was thirty, but that doesn't scare
me. As far as I'm concerned I made the best decision of my life."
Meirav
Amar, who was one of the first Border Police women fighters and now coordinates
security with the Hebron Jewish community, said, "At first it wasn't easy; we
were perceived as freaks and a focus for jokes. The quality of the girls
applying for combat duty is of a far higher caliber than it was then. However,
we work a lot harder in order to prove ourselves. Today, we are considered part
of the scenery."
Another veteran Border Police officer, Liraz Eyal,
described similar resistance in her experience. "In the beginning the settlers
found it hard to accept that I was a woman. They came up to us and told us to go
home and raise children. That we shouldn't be in the army. But now they
understand we are doing an important job. After all we are here for them and
it's hard work."
Eyal said that sometimes the female fighters are held
to an even higher standard than men "We have to prove ourselves to everybody. We
always have to do better and we cannot make mistakes because if we mess up it
reflects badly on the girls."
Knesset member and Israeli feminist Yael
Dayan described the added benefit provided by the female soldier. "She has an
extra value. Her communication is different. She's sensitive, especially when
she has to deal with the civilian population which needs some extra capacity of
talking, of understanding."
Hani Abramov viewed as a role model
Hani Abramov captured the national spotlight when she was seriously injured
in a shooting attack near Tulkarm last summer. Abramov, who had previously
appeared in a French fashion magazine, sustained injuries to her face and neck.
She has undergone a series of operations and still has a long road ahead of her
toward total rehabilitation.
Hani says she doesn't regret her decision
to serve in a combat role and is happy that she has inspired other women to
follow suit. "I love hearing that there is a spirit of volunteerism among girls
who want to join the Border Police. I think my case has contributed something to
them."
In an interview immediately following her injury, Hani said, "I
never asked myself what happened to me? Why did I choose this direction? It's
just me. I'm not an office girl. I am a girl who likes guns, the field, running,
exercises, training in boys' things. That's what I am."
Hani advised all
women considering joining the Border Police to remain determined and not to give
up during the difficult times. "A female Border Police fighter must seem like
she can handle anyone, even if he looks terrifying. I suggest that she be afraid
on the inside, but not on the outside. She has a gun in her hands and she has
nothing to be afraid of."
Meirav Amar said that all the female Border
Police fighters took Hani's injury to heart. "When Hani was wounded, we were all
affected as everyone perceived her as being invincible; she is considered to be
one of our strongest fighters," Amar said.
Despite her difficulties,
Hani believes that her service was an important contribution to her country, "To
serve in the Border Police is a nationalistic mission and I am sure that it is
more important than making coffee for the boss. I do not regret one second,
despite the injury. I am proud and I love the Border Police."
Return to top
Is the world ready for the
first
Sabbath-observant supermodel?
by
Cassandra Jardine
LONDON - Havi Mond wakes up in Tzefas (Safed),
northern Israel, travels for two hours to Tel Aviv, waits for three hours to go
through security, flies to London, takes the train down to Brighton, where her
grandparents live, and then goes to work as a model.
"Sometimes, when
there is a red alert, it takes even longer, as security has to go through every
bag, but I am used to it," she says.
She started making these epic
journeys last August, imagining that, as a little-known model, she would not be
much in demand. Within a week, she had landed her first shoot for Vogue -
earning only £50 (about $74), their standard fee - and she was launched.
Already, she is widely talked of as the girl most likely to revive the supermodel phenomenon, and the nightmarish trip has turned into a fortnightly, sometimes weekly, routine.
By now, most girls would have thrown in their El Al boarding pass and settled in London, but Havi is in no rush. "I am a very home child," she says, sounding deceptively young for her 19 years. "I love living with my mummy and daddy, I love cooking and cleaning. So I am happy to travel, though sometimes it is a little boring."
Havi is a classic beauty with perfect skin and an other-worldly tranquility. A host of magazines have already used her and, next month, she will begin advertising the French Connection summer collection. Calvin Klein wants to see her, as do scores of other top names.
She's young, she's fresh - and she is an Israeli whose Orthodox Judaism makes her refuse work on Fridays and Saturdays, avoid non-kosher catering and turn down jobs that require her to wear anything that she, or her parents Peter and Pamela, consider "provocative." Cramping for a model's style, one might think, but apparently not. "It all adds to the intrigue," says Alisa Marks, French Connection's creative director.
We meet in the decadently ornate surroundings of Sketch, the latest wildly expensive London salon de the. Havi is not one of those models whose good looks you could miss if she were not dolled up and painted. She is dressed in combat trousers and a parka, but even the outer garb of a brussel sprout doesn't mask her beauty. Kate Winslet's recent photographic touch-up and slim-down made it seem as if anyone could be a model now, but Havi - 5 feet 9 inches, eight stone (112 pounds) and perfectly proportioned - has a considerable head start.
Some say she looks like Cindy Crawford, others say Claudia Schiffer; there's a touch, too, of Julia Roberts when she gives one of her wide smiles. Throw in some olive skin and Shakira/Jennifer Lopez-style long, streaked hair and Havi's name alone may soon be enough to sell clothes or perfume.
PROUDLY PATRIOTIC AND RELIGIOUS
But, to me, the most amazing thing about
her appearance is that she is dressed like a soldier --- right down to an
ammunition bag. Surely a girl who has just completed her national service, who
commutes between London and the intifada, whose every lipstick is searched when
she leaves home, must have had enough of military khaki?
"Oh, but it is the fashion here, you could look at it as just the color green," she says. Then she turns on her charm, opens her pale eyes wide, gives an enormous smile and adds: "Or you could look at it as the good stuff of the army - and be proud."
Havi may dress like a British teenager but in spirit she is a world away, the product of an upbringing on the front line. Cynicism and worldly cool are not for her; patriotism is. Although she can resist the fancy "blue/green tea" and minute but pricey chocolate cake on offer, she cannot pass up an opportunity to act as an ambassador for her nation.
"People get a funny impression of Israel from the television," she says. "They think you don't go out, you don't even walk in the street because people can just blow themselves up. It is not really like that. You have to keep going. We don't sit around not doing things, just crying."
Havi's English is charmingly accented with guttural "h"s and elongated vowels. Her parents, who emigrated to Israel from Britain in their youth, have always spoken English to their four children, but Hebrew is Havi's first language and her home is in the old, Orthodox sector of a town that was threatened by Scud missiles during the Gulf war.
"When I was a child, we often had to go to a room and put on a gas mask," she says. "But it is not so bad now. Or it was not so bad but, a month ago, a bus was bombed near my home. Most of those killed were soldiers but I knew one of the women who died. In Israel, we are like a big family, so you try to be sensitive, to help as much as you can and be there for people. Their pain is your pain.
"I don't lie awake at night worrying, but each time something happens, each time there is a threat, it does something to you. Everyone in Israel is very aware of security. Each time you get on a bus, you look around, you check, you have to be aware."
London must be delightfully relaxing for her by comparison? Apparently not. "We don't have muggers in Israel," she notes. "And what I find very strange is that in my country, there are security and army people everywhere, but here, the only time I see guards is inside fashion shops. Sometimes they have them outside, too."
Havi sees a lot of fashion shops. For all her quiet spirituality, she is a girly girl who could shop until she drops. "Sometimes, I think it is almost a sickness," she says, with a giggle. In Israel, she haunts the boutiques of Netanya with her grandmother; in London, she traipses around with her aunt, who is in the fashion business.
How did she cope with national service? "I am a religious girl," she explains, "and, until a year ago, religious girls did not do military service - there were problems with the clothes, the boys. So I taught hyperactive children and those from poor neighborhoods and I helped Ethiopians who had just arrived in Israel to learn Hebrew."
Many young people of other nationalities do all they can to wriggle their way out of national service, but Havi earnestly defends her soft option. "I cannot see myself living in tents and doing all that running around," she admits. "But national service is just as important to the government." Naturally, her brother and her boyfriend both served their country in the army for three years and she expresses no resentment at having had to put a potentially lucrative modeling career on hold.
This unswerving loyalty to her country leads her to avoid political discussions, but she must have met people in Britain who have expressed sympathy for the Palestinians. "No, never," she says, bewildered at the thought.
Havi was spotted, aged 16, by Sarah Leon, a booker for the model agency Select. But there was no question of her starting a career immediately, even though her walls were plastered with pictures of Cindy Crawford, her role model. She had had modeling offers in Israel and turned them down - "there, the industry has the image of using the girls", she says.
Her parents, a social worker and a drama therapist, were not tempted by Select's talk of the international big time, either. They wanted their daughter to finish school, where she got marks in the nineties for her final exams, and do her national service before thinking about a career.
"I didn't keep mentioning it to my mummy and my daddy because I knew they did not like the idea," says Havi. It was only when Select flew her and her mother to London, showed them what a family-minded agency they were, and promised never to ask her to do work that went against her principles, that the Monds agreed.
So far, Havi has had a chaperone on most jobs but soon, she will have to manage on her own. Her childhood, so sheltered in some ways, so tough in others, might not seem to equip her for the bitching, the rejections, the transitoriness of many modeling careers, but she is not worried.
"I like the idea of being a supermodel," she says. "It would be fun to be famous, so long as I didn't lose my private life. And I like modeling: the clothes, the make-up and having my hair done. There are many places I want to see - Switzerland, France, Brazil - and I would like to save some money and buy a flat so that, when I am a student, I don't have to work. But I won't be disappointed if it doesn't work out.
"I used to want to be a lawyer but now, I want to study marketing. I would like to be a publicity girl. Many models work only in the holidays and I could do that, too. Or, if I am working all the time, I could get a flat in London. My parents would let me if I really wanted to. With my boyfriend? Now, that might be more difficult."
In the meantime, she will carry on living at home, buy a book on marketing to pass the endless hours in airports, and continue to demonstrate to the outside world that Israelis can be beautiful and resilient, without being aggressive.
As she says: "Every person deals with the situation in a different way, but we cannot stop living our lives."
Cassandra Jardine is a columnist
for The Telegraph of London.
Return to top
Comedian offers poignant view
of Ethiopian Jewish
community
Mixing comic patter with
pathos, Israeli actor-comedian Yossi Vassa transports audiences
back to his
small village in Ethiopia's Gondar region and into his neighborhood in Netanya,
Israel as he takes the stage. In doing so, he uses his biting humor and his
eye for poignant
moments to create a better understanding of Israel's unique
Ethiopian Jewish community.
In his U.S. debut, Vassa is currently
bringing his one-man stand up show It Sounds Better in Amharic, to American
audiences. His tour includes more than 50 shows at college campuses including
Yale, Harvard, and MIT, theaters in San Francisco, San Diego, Los Angeles and a
number of festivals.
Vassa, who immigrated to Israel in 1985 as a
7-year-old with his family as part of Operation Moses, has performed his one-man
show more than 150 times in Tel Aviv.
The Israeli Foreign Ministry is
involved with bringing Vassa over, and the shows on campuses are being sponsored
by the Hillel organization.
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Israel-Pakistan doubles team wins Ashe award
LONDON (AP) An Israeli-Pakistani
doubles team won the ATP's Arthur Ashe
Humanitarian Award on Thursday for
promoting ''tolerance through tennis.''
Israel's Amir Hadad, a Jew, and
Pakistan's Aisam-Ul-Haq Qureshi, a Muslim,
played doubles at Wimbledon and
the U.S Open last year.
''During a summer when fear and hatred garnered
much of the headlines,
Amir and Ais am-Ul-Haq provided much needed relief
with their simple message
about tolerance through tennis,'' ATP chief
executive Mark Miles said.
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Al-Qaeda planned attack
on Israeli national
soccer team
Source: Israel
Insider
Days before a scheduled soccer match, Italian police dismantled
a suspected al-Qaeda cell and arrested four Tunisians planning attacks
on unspecified targets in Europe, Yediot Aharonot reported. The paper
quoted "a security source in Rome" as saying that Italian officials were
investigating the possibility the suspected al-Qaeda operatives were
targeting the Israeli soccer team.
The incident was not the first
time Israelis have been targeted for possible
terrorist attacks in Malta. A
few months ago, the Shin Bet security service
banned a youth swimming team
from traveling to Malta due to terror threats,
former Science, Culture and
Sports Minister Matan Vilnai told Army Radio.
Gavri Levy, the chairman of
Israel's Football Association, said he was afraid
reports of the planned
attack would make other countries reluctant to host
Israeli teams. "With
these reports they will say that every country that
[agrees to play Israel]
is endangered by attacks from al-Qaeda, and that will
be bad for us," he
told Army Radio.
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Safety in numbers??
According to the IDF, as of February 5, these were the
statistics on Palestinian
terrorism against Israel:
5,063 Israelis
injured (3,594 Civilians and 1,469 Security Forces)
724 Israelis killed (506
Civilians and 218 Security Forces)
16,347 attacks* (7,230 West Bank; 8,455
Gaza Strip; 662 Home Front)
* Does not include attacks with rocks or
firebombs.
Return to top
NASA factoid
Engineer Werner von Braun, 1912-1977
After World War
II, German-born rocket engineer Werner von Braun came to the U.S.,
where he
developed rockets for the United States military and for NASA. His history
of having been a member of the Nazi party and a key figure in the
development of
Germany's rocket program during the war made him a
controversial figure. It was later
calculated that thousands of people
enslaved by the Nazis had been killed working in
von Braun's missile
projects, in addition to the thousands killed in London from the
notorious
V-2 missile, developed by von Braun. The V-2 was also used against Allied
troops after D-Day.
Return to top
An Israel trivia tidbit
Noa and Daniel were the most popular names for Israeli
babies born in 2001.
(More trivia from the editor: Noa is the name of
my favorite Israeli singer,
and Daniel is the name of my younger
son!)
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History comes back to haunt the
PLO
In an interview with the Dutch
newspaper Trau (March 31, 1977), PLO executive
committee member Zahir
Muhsein said: "The Palestinian people does not exist.
The creation of a
Palestinian state is only a means for continuing our struggle
against the
state of Israel for our Arab unity. In reality today there is no difference
between Jordanians, Palestinians, Syrians and Lebanese. Only for political
and tactical
reasons do we speak today about the existence of a Palestinian
people, since Arab
national interests demand that we posit the existence of
a distinct 'Palestinian people'
to oppose Zionism."
Return to top
PETA and the Palestinians
Source: NewsMax's "Left Coast Report")
It’s about
time the terror-mongering Yasser Arafat heard from People for the Ethical
Treatment of Animals. But who would have thought it would be in this
manner?
It seems that a letter was dispatched recently from PETA to
Yasser. The PETA folks
were upset because of a Jan. 26 bombing that took
place in Jerusalem. Were they
disturbed by the death and destruction that
terrorism of this type causes? Well, sort of.
Apparently, a donkey died.
PETA prez Ingrid Newkirk wrote a letter that was faxed
to Arafat's
headquarters in Ramallah. So reports The Washington Post.
When Newkirk
was asked why she didn’t try to get Arafat to quit blowing up innocent
civilians, women and kids, she responded, "It's not my business to inject
myself into
human wars."
The Left Coast Report wonders how PETA can
poke its nose into every other freakin’
aspect of our lives – our food,
clothing, medicine and hobbies – but when it comes to
homicidal maniacs
killing innocent people, it’s none of the group’s business?
(Editor's
note: PETA is circulating a new campaign on college campuses
titled
"Holocaust on Your Plate." It is an outrageous insult to humanity,
comparing
the food industry's treatment of animals to the Nazis' treatment
of humans.)
Return to top
101,000 historic figures hit campuses
in support of
Israel
The Reverend Dr. Martin Luther
King Jr., former First Lady Eleanor Roosevelt and former Egyptian President
Anwar Sadat are featured on an attractive series of postcards from Hillel: The
Foundation for Jewish Campus Life. Quotes from King, Roosevelt, and Sadat,
complement the words of former President John F. Kennedy and former Israeli
Prime Minister Golda Meir. The quotes stress
peace and democracy.
The
101,000 postcards are part of a broader "Israel 101" student-led campaign to
educate campuses about Israel and will be distributed to Hillel campuses across
North America to help educate students about the wide range of Israel's
supporters.
At the end of the semester, a panel will award prizes for
the events that reach the largest number of participants, have the largest
impact on the Jewish community and the largest impact on campus. Although prizes
have not been announced, campaign organizers rumor that prizes could include 101
pints of Ben and Jerry's ice cream and more.
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********************************************************
ONLINE RESOURCES ON THE MIDDLE
EAST
Editor's note: Last summer,
I took an online hasbara (Israel advocacy)
course with the Jewish Agency for
Israel. Neil Lazarus led the course;
below are a few links he recommends
regarding the situation in the
Middle East:
For the latest on USA
policy in the Middle East:
http://www.usembassy-israel.org.il/publish/peace/ongoing.htm
For Tenet proposal:
http://www.awesomeseminars.com/tenet.htm
Terrorism in Statistics:
http://www.idf.il/english/news/graphEat.stm
For graphic photos from the Intifada:
http://www.members.home.net/projectonesoul/israel/israel.htm
and
http://www.bereshitsoftware.com/kdoshim/index.htm
If you want to teach about the subject:
http://www.awesomeseminars.com/terror2.htm
Editor's note: I'm doing some volunteer work for the
following group,
based in New York City. Check it out:
Professionals
for Israel
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********************************************************
EXCERPTS FROM HADASSAH'S JERUSALEM
NETLETTER
Mission with
spice
(Editor's note: Two of our very own members, Lena
Rogachevsky and
Janna Walsh, participated in this exciting mission. They will
speak at our
Donor/Tzedakah Dinner on May 6.)
Optimism was
present every moment on Renaissance II, Hadassah's second
mission to revive
tourism. The 64 participants from 14 states began
their trip with a
Moroccan-Jewish festival, with traditional food,
beating drums and even a
henna ceremony where their hands were
decorated with the red dye guaranteed,
usually at engagement
parties, to mark lifelong bonds. In this case, the
participants were
bonding with Israel. "It feels so wonderful to be back
here," said
Lise Rosenthal of Fresno, CA. Group leaders Marlene Post and
Miki
Schulman needed no arm-twisting to don elaborate Moroccan
wedding
gowns in what turned out to be a fascinating, spice-filled
mission.
"Star Wars" queen at HMO
We're used to
seeing her fly through the universe, but she was very much down to earth at
Hadassah University Hospital. Natalie Portman, better known as Queen Amaidala,
the royal leader of Naboo in the "Star Wars" prequels, visited the sick kids,
bearing Star Wars toys. Born in Jerusalem, Portman moved to the US as a toddler
with her artist mother and physician father - Dr. Avner Hershlag, a graduate of
Hadassah-Hebrew University School, today a fertility expert in Long Island. The
Jerusalem-born movie star lives in Jericho, Long Island. She is active in
supporting Israel in the Harvard Crimson. Despite her success in handling
galactic politics, Portman didn't get involved in Israeli's complicated
political system.
Reprinted from Hadassah's Jerusalem Netletter. To
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send a blank message to Netletter-on@mail-list.com
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